Interview 1 with Junifer Hall (Congresswoman Katie Hall)

Junifer Hall, the daughter of Representative Katie Hall, describes her mother's childhood in Mound Bayou, Tennessee, including the racial profile of the community and her mother's financial circumstances growing up.

***Transcript***

Junifer Hall: Katie Beatrice Green Hall was born on April 3rd, 1938 in the small Delta Mississippi town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and Mound Bayou is located approximately 100 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. Mound Bayou was founded by two former slaves of the brother of Jefferson Davis, who we know was the president of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, and my mother grew up very poor. Her family were cotton farmers in Mound Bayou. They didn’t have a lot of resources, fame or wealth, very poor as she liked to describe herself during those years. Mound Bayou is the only African American, all-African American town in the United States of America, even until this day. You will have a few Asians, but 99.9% African American, and during the days of my mother’s youth, Mound Bayou was a thriving town with African American-owned banks and businesses. A hospital was located in Mound Bayou, and even though she did not experience racism directly, she was very well aware of the segregated times in which she lived.